Pages

We reap what we sow. Just ask impartial political
and social analysts how this spate of men behaving badly started. The answer
ought to come back that Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Matt Lauer, Bill O’Reilly
are just the tip of a nefarious ice berg.

Did this all start with society’s open cover-up
of Bill Clinton’s peccadillos? It didn’t help that his “did not have sex with
that woman” line was believed or at least accepted by feminists and liberals
because he was their man. Just as President Trump’s crude statements about the
fun of promiscuously grabbing random women is tolerated by his admirers. Cue
Tammy Wynette singing “Stand By Your Man.”

No, the dalliances of powerful men have long been
overlooked. Women have a shameful part in this, but more on that later.
Certainly, the brazen affairs of President JFK are now well chronicled. Nude
swimming with ladies in the White House pool and Secret Service guards
diverting his wife Jackie away from the door that would have revealed what she
already knew was going on. Nightly rendezvous with ladies to help Jack with his
headaches… yes, that was the accepted rational at the time. But the
affairs of Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower and FDR were covered up by the
press with the excuse that “boys will be boys.”

The first time I heard that canard was from my
father. He was disgusted by the behavior of his fellow Air Corp officers in
World War II. Married men stationed in Hawaii before and after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 openly dated local girls, and by dating we are
talking more than moonlight strolls on the beach! Dad told his sons often that
the reasons or rationalization were legion. But the most common one was, “boys
will be boys.” He didn’t buy it for a minute.

Some folks misquote scriptures and say, “you
shouldn’t judge.” That too is a discussion for another time, but my father had
no trouble looking his sons in the eyes and stating clearly that “that is
terrible behavior. Your morals matter. No excuses.”

So, after hundreds of years of men behaving
badly, and way too many women willing to participate in the cover ups, the
victims of male predatory and promiscuous sexual practices have courageously
stood up, one by one, and said, “I didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it and
demanded it stop.” Yes, plenty of women did want the romance or sexual
attention. Yes, they did dress immodestly to attract attention. Yes, they’ve
contributed to this debauchery. But, that doesn’t excuse anyone. Bad behavior
is bad behavior. Men or women.

The answer to all of this is actually fairly
simple and more than a hashtag campaign. Live the Gospel of Christ. Chastity,
modesty, and fidelity are not outside the ability of anyone to live. Temperance
in alcohol would eliminate a huge amount of the grief.

In 1983, the Reverend Jerry Falwell who started
The Moral Majority, not as a vaunt but a goal, and later Liberty University,
was asked at a dinner I attended, “If you were driving down a country road at
dusk saw a lady off to the side of the road with car trouble, would you give
her a lift into town?” Some in our party were surprised by his answer.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We both have too much at risk.”

He went on to
explain that he would stop, try to fix the problem and stay with her until he
could flag someone down and drive with her into town to get a tow truck to help
her out. But, he would NEVER be alone with a woman who was not his family.

Vice President Mike Pense has been roundly
ridiculed by the same people who are aghast at the randy, stud-ram ethics of
Weinstein, et.al. He has categorically stated he will never have dinner with a
single lady. He’s drawn a moral line in the sand he won’t cross. Considering
his detractor’s inability to understand the consequences of moral actions, he’s
doing something very right. Needless to say, VP Pense would never invite a
woman to his hotel room “just for business.” It’s astounding how many women
have fallen for that trap.

And to executives, here’s a thought. Eliminate
closed opaque locked doors. No blinds. Just literal transparency in the work
place. Matt Lauer would not have done what he did to women in his office if the
complicit bosses at NBC had officially declared “no locked or opaque doors.”

Women must draw moral lines in the sand even if
they think it will cost them their job. You have too much at risk otherwise.
And…you may be fired. That’s the price of courage rather than unintentionally becoming
an enabler or complicit.

Complicit. That fits for so many men and women in
this necessary purging of bad behavior in our society. But laws, lawsuits,
firings and such will not end this spate of bad behavior. Yes, we’ll fire
people and demand others resign, but that’s just an ineffective attempt to cure
societal woes. As the Book of Mormon clearly demonstrates, when
surface behavior changes without soulful repentance, the disease will return
with a vengeance.

With the passing of President Thomas S. Monson on January
2, 2018, my first thoughts were of sadness to lose such a great and decent
person from an earth that desperately needs more kind and gentle souls. But
then I’m covered with his joy at being relieved of the difficulties of health
and in being reunited with his wife, Frances.

Immediately my thoughts are taken to my memories of brief
encounters with this man.

Across the reception hall the tall, well-dressed man left
his post in the receiving line and strode straight to me. He reached out and
put my tie between his fingers and proclaimed, “It’s a confident businessman
who wears a yellow tie. How are you this evening?

That wasn’t my first encounter with Elder Thomas Monson.

I first met him as a young teen flying alone from San
Francisco to Salt Lake City. Somehow I was put in 1st Class. As I
relaxed in my seat, a very tall fellow boarded the flight with a smile as wide
as the aisle. I knew who he was. Elder Thomas S. Monson, who had just recently
been called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints. Callings didn’t come much bigger than that in this
church.

He smiled down at me and asked him to excuse him as he
stepped around my knees and settled his tall frame into the seat better suited
for him than me. Instantly, before putting on his seat belt, he thrust out his
hand, “Hello. I’m Elder Tom Monson. What’s your name?”

I presented myself in a stammering way that didn’t matter
to him. He listened and then asked me if
I was a Boy Scout. We talked about campouts, knots and scout nonsense for a
while. He laughed a lot and asked me more questions about my life. Soon the
flight attendant let us know it was time to put our seats up and prepare for
landing. We’d spent nearly two hours talking about me. He shook my hand as he
left the plane and said, “You’ll be a fine missionary one day. But don’t grow
up too fast.” With that he was gone.

As I sat in the south balcony near the Tabernacle Choir I
thought about that chance encounter with a man who had only been an apostle a
short time. By now, years had passed and I was at BYU. He was doing what he’d
done for decades and was about ready to speak at General Conference. As he
spoke I noticed the young man in front of me, not much older than I, starting
to breathe heavily and heave his body sideways and then rock forward and back.
Suddenly he jumped from his seat and shouted, “That’s enough, Elder Monson,
and…” I couldn’t make out what he said as he stepped into the aisle and began
ranting as he walked down the aisle of the balcony. Before he got to the
bannister, perhaps to leap over it, he was tackled by at least two security
guards. I looked up to Elder Monson who had not flinched, nor stopped speaking
during this disturbance. As the guards picked up the young man, Elder Monson
continued in his Monsoneque fashion as if he’d been unaware of the ruckus. In a
Tabernacle where you could hear a pin drop, no doubt the yelling had been
noticed, but made no impression on the speaker.

I reminded him of that ruckus and also my flight with him
when I met him as a missionary in Brisbane, Australia. I wondered if he was
really good at faking remembrance but he said some things that left no doubt he
remembered that scout from the plane – he brought up the scouting stories
again. In his sermon to the Elders, Sisters and couples, he began by telling us
that he had just come from the Pacific islands where he was met by the Mission
President, Elder Waters, his counselor Elder Flood and Elder Reigns and there
he was Elder Monsoon. We all laughed and groaned but enjoyed his sense of
humor.

That
night at the fireside open to all, he spoke in his undulating pattern of
amusing and serious applications of gospel service. Perhaps I listened more
than night because we’d brought a lady who had been taught by other
missionaries before we’d given her the full set of discussions, yet she could
not take the next step of baptism. She explained how she loved what she’d been
taught, her extensive reading of the Book of Mormon and the Bible; that it all
made the greatest sense but she just didn’t “know if it was true.” I had no
other answers but to suggest she attend the fireside and listen to an apostle.
She sat next to us listening with real intent. After Elder Monson concluded and
sat for a moment, he stood and walked back to the podium and said he felt impressed
that he needed to shake our hands and meet each of us, so for us not to be
shocked when he walked to the rear door of the Kangaroo Point Chapel during the
closing song.

When the final Amens were said to the evening’s closing
benediction, the hundreds of people who had filled the chapel began filing out
that back door. I could see him towering over the people with a large smile,
reaching down to grasp each hand. As we approached I could hear him tell each
person, “thank you for coming… good to meet you… thank you for coming…” and so
forth. Many had shaken his hand before us so when it came our turn I expected
more of the same. He shook my hand and said, “good to see you…” and then
stopped, looked down at the sister with us, smiled, reached for her hand and
held it a moment. Then quietly he said to her, “Sister, it’s true.” It seemed
longer than a moment; far longer. And then he went back to greeting and shaking
people’s hands.

The lady with us managed to get away from us through the
crowd and we found her at the balcony rail of the outdoor patio. Tears were
streaming down her face as she smiled and nodded her head in affirmation of the
witness she had received. Her baptism followed the next week.

At the open house for the President’s Club of Ricks
College, while my wife and I waited for our turn to go through the reception
line, I was telling Elizabeth about that fireside more than 30 years before in
Australia when Elder Monson walked toward us. After he had finished admiring my
tie, I told him the last time I had met him he’d told us about meet President
Waters in the Pacific islands, and then he finished retelling the story. He
didn’t miss a word from what he’d told us in Brisbane. I think my wife was
surprised to find out that I hadn’t made up a single thing.

When we all finished chuckling over that story, I quickly
retold him the story of the sister who he had helped so much. His smile left
and in a deeply somber mood he thanked me for sharing that with him, that he
hadn’t known the reason for him going to the back to shake hands but did so
now. He again thanked me and wished Elizabeth and I all the best.

I didn’t see him for years after that and only briefly
when we drove by his home in Midway, Utah, and waved to him as he was in his
yard with a rake, wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt, doing what everyone
else did on a Saturday afternoon, just being the person that he’d been when
they used to call him Tommy Monson instead of President.

Christ Visiting Ancient Russians

Imagine my surprise to find this Nesterov painting from about 1900 on a phonograph record celebrating 1,000 years of baptism in Russia. To receive a free hi-def version, please email mark@mjstoddard.com and subject line Russian Painting.